Thomas MacMillan Photo
Mayoral candidate Justin Elicker challenged his frontrunner Toni Harp to return $9,000 in campaign contributions she received from nine suburban doctors a day after the city canceled a $180,000 contract with their company. Harp said she sees no reason to.
The sparring took place Monday as the general election campaign began in earnest — with Elicker (pictured) signalling that he plans to press the money-in-politics issue that resonates with his base.
Harp clobbered Elicker and two other Democrats in last week’s Democratic mayoral primary. Elicker emerged as the top challenger and is continuing his campaign as an independent in the Nov. 5 general election. (The two other candidates ended their candidacies.)
Monday found him at the Hamden headquarters of Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists, the biggest bundler of contributions to Harp’s campaign.
As the Independent first reported last week, the city on July 25 sent out a letter announcing that the company would no longer be authorized to treat city workers for work-related illnesses under the government’s workers compensation plan. The firm took home about $800,000 from that contract in the previous fiscal year. The city acted after one of the firm’s doctors signed a form stating that a public-works employee should be limited to four or five hours of light-duty work a day. The doctor later admitted signing it not for medical reasons, but because the employee wanted time to work a second job. The city has been trying to crack down on out-of-control workers compensation costs. (After negotiations with DeStefano administration officials, the company was allowed back in on the plan with new conditions, including one barring the doctor.)
On July 26, that doctor and eight others from the firm wrote $1,000 checks (the maximum allowed by law), to Harp’s campaign.
Elicker called that a “typical example of pay-to-play politics in New Haven, where politicians pressure companies into contributing to campaigns in order to do business with cities like New Haven.”
He spoke on Monday outside the Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists offices on Whitney Avenue in Hamden, backed by a row of supporters holding Elicker campaign signs.
“Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists has a strong reputation in the state, and surely does not have negative intentions,” Elicker said.
City of New Haven
Elicker called pay-to-play practices unethical and wasteful. “It creates an unfriendly environment for developers looking to invest in New Haven,” he said. “And it increases the likelihood of preferential contracts being given out to those who donated, rather than those who are best for the job.”
Elicker cited a Harp quotation from this Independent story: “People who give don’t expect a quid pro quo. They just want a meeting, maybe, to give their point of view.”
“Sen. Harp, that is a quid pro quo,” Elicker said. “This is a policy of ‘pay-for-access to Toni Harp.’ Forcing organizations to pay to a campaign to get access to the politician is exactly the type of pay to play that we must stop in New Haven.”
Elicker said the contributions from Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists is the most “egregious” instance of pay-to-play politics seen yet this election year. He called on Harp to return the $9,000.
“I have a long history” of serving in government, both before the introduction of public-financing systems and after, noted Harp, an 11th-term state senator and a former city alderwoman. “There’s no relationship between how I do business and how I run my campaign.” She said campaign contributors have never bought influence with her legislative work.
She also said that the surgeons’ contract is not technically with the city, but with an outside vendor, CIRMA (the Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency). The firm’s CEO met with the DeStefano administration’s chief administrative office, Rob Smuts, to negotiate the return to the plan, including the conditions, and wrote him a letter directly to confirm those conditions.
Harp: I Wouldn’t Kill The Democracy Fund
Monday’s back-and-forth played out against the backdrop of an ongoing campaign debate over the role of money.
Elicker participated in the primary in the Democracy Fund, the city’s voluntary public-financing system. That limited him to $370 (rather than $1,000) per individual contribution, and barred him from accepting money from outside committees. In return he received matching public dollars. He argued that public-financing removes or lessens the influence of wealthy and out-of-town donors and special interests from government.
Harp has chosen not to participate in the system — and has raised most of her money from out of town. At a recent debate she took aim at the Democracy Fund. “In our city budget, we spend over $200,000 on the Democracy Fund while cutting programs to our young people. And so I am very concerned about when we have these conversations, we haven’t looked at the whole picture,” she said.
In an interview Monday, she said she wanted to clarify those remarks.
She has no intention of trying to get rid of the Democracy Fund, she said. She said she supports its existence. She said she supported the state legislation that enabled the city to create the fund as a first-in-the-state municipal pilot.
She meant to focus on the hypocrisy of her opponents depicting the city as facing a Detroit-style fiscal crisis, she said. If New Haven were really in that kind of crisis, she said, then the candidates would have to “look at” whether the city can afford paying for the Democracy Fund. She said she does not believe New Haven faces that kind of crisis. “We can still have the Democracy Fund and make small [budgetary] changes to get our house in order,” she said.
Cora Lewis Photo
Harp at the polls on primary day.
Harp said she supports the idea of “fixing” the Democracy Fund by not allowing a candidate to use it to “get his name out” in a primary — and then run in the general election having benefited from it. Under the current system, candidates cannot use the system in both a primary and a general election. So Elicker can’t use it in the general election.
Elicker said he nonetheless intends still to abide by the rules of the Fund — the $370 limit and the restriction against outside money — even though he won’t receive any more matching money.
Harp said the city system should work like the state system: some of the money should be available in a primary, but the entire matching grant should be spread out between the primary and the general election.
“In our city budget, we spend over $200,000 on the Democracy Fund while cutting programs to our young people. And so I am very concerned about when we have these conversations, we haven’t looked at the whole picture.”
After Elicker’s press conference, the Harp campaign issued a release calling Elicker’s suggestion of returning the money “ridiculous” in light of Harp’s record of service; and criticizing him for negative campaign that “distracts from the real issues.”
Kudos to Harp for backtracking on her statements about the Democracy Fund. It wasn't exactly a great idea for her to be perceived as a candidate who wishes for her wealthy donors and special interests to have the only voice in local politics.
That said, we can all "read between the lines" of her comments, particularly given her recent vote to undermine public financing at the state level, in a bill signed into law this June by Governor Malloy (one that, of course, had no press conference and was largely ignored by the media).